Charlie Huston - Already Dead

– Tacky, Joe.

– Yeah, well.

I'm halfway up the stairs, Hurley behind me, when Terry calls after.

– By the way, what happened to your face?

– Rolled out of bed this morning and pulled open the curtain. Don't know what it is, I just keep thinking I'm still alive or something.

– Be careful about that, Joe. Thinking like that, it gets us dead.

– So I hear.

Then I'm through the basement door, into the hallway, and out onto the street, Hurley right behind me. We're on Avenue D between 5th and 6th. Hurley starts walking north toward 6th and I follow him.

– So how 'bout my guns, Hurley?

– Terry says I gotta walk ya a ways first.

– OK.

We turn west onto 6th.

– Sorry 'bout clobber'n ya from behind an all.

– Yeah, sure.

We're about halfway down the block when he stops and turns to me.

– Sorry, Joe.

– So you said, Hurley.

– Naw, I mean sorry bout dis.

– Sorry about what?

– Terry says I got ta rough ya up some.

I blink.

– When the hell did he say that? I didn't hear him say that.

– He told me when ya was still out.

– What the hell for?

– He said it was fer ben a smart mout.

– What the hell? I was out cold, I hadn't even had a chance to smart off.

– Yeah, but he said ya would. He said yer always a smart mout.

– This ain't right.

– Like I said, sorry, Joe, but I got ta do it. It's my job.

– Calling it your job don't make it right, Hurley.

– Whatever.

And he goes to work on me. He's pretty good about it, stays away from my face, and only cracks a couple ribs. When he's done I'm slumped down on the sidewalk with my back against a building. He tosses the guns on my lap and heads back to Society headquarters.

– Keep yer nose clean, Joe.

– Yeah, thanks for the advice.

I could go back, take my guns, kick down the door and blast away. With any luck I'd take out two of them. With a lot of luck I might get them all. But what would be the point? Their people would come after me. And Terry and me really do go back a ways. Hell, there was a time I almost bought all that Society line of crap. Terry's dream of uniting all the Vampyre and taking us public to live like normal people; maybe get the resources of the world to help find a cure for the Vyrus. Yeah, I believed all that. For awhile. Then I figured what I was around for, the kind of jobs Terry handed me, and was gonna keep handing me. So I got out.

It takes over half an hour for me to hobble home clutching my ribs. By the time I crawl into bed it's almost four in the morning and I'm not even thinking about looking for that carrier anymore.

The phone rings about an hour after I fall into a painful sleep.

– This is Joe Pitt. Leave a message.

– Hey, Joe, it's me. If you're in bed don't pick up.

Evie's voice. I pick up the phone.

– Hey.

– You asleep?

– Thinking about it.

– You're asleep, aren't you?

– Just barely. What's up?

– Nothing, I just got off work.

– You OK?

– Yeah, a little lonely.

– You want to come over, watch a movie?

There's a brief silence.

– No. You should sleep. You don't sleep enough.

– I'll sleep when I'm dead. Come over.

– No, I just wanted to hear your voice. I'll be OK now. You get some sleep.

– Yeah, sleep.

– You around tomorrow night?

I think about the carrier still out there and the deadline that I've already blown.

– Think I'm gonna be tied up.

– Maybe you can drop by the bar and say hi.

– I'll do that.

– OK. Sleep tight.

– You too.

She hangs up and so do I.

I met Evie about two years back. She tends bar at a place over on 9th and C. I was there looking for a deadbeat who owed a guy some money. She was behind the bar of this honky-tonk in the middle of Alphabet City. Curly red hair, freckles, twenty-two, wearing an Elvis T-shirt and a pair of Daisy Dukes.

I come in and ask her if she knows the deadbeat. She gives me a fish eye while she digs a couple of Lone Stars out of the cooler and bangs them down in front of a lesbian couple necking at the bar. They snap out of it long enough to pay up, then go back to their alternative lifestyle.

– Who's looking for him?

I peer over my right shoulder, then over my left, and back at her.

– I guess that must be me.

– What you want him for?

– He's a deadbeat and I'm gonna collect on some debts he owes.

She looks me over.

– Uh-huh. You ever seen this guy you're looking for?

– Nope.

She smiles a little to herself.

– Well, you just sit quiet and have a drink and listen to the music. If this guy comes in, maybe I'll let you know. What're you having?

I lean over the bar to look down in the ice bin at the piles of Lone Star bottles, and nothing else.

- Guess I'll have a Lone Star.

She pulls one out, pops the cap and slaps it down.

– Man of discriminating tastes.

– Yeah.

She moves off to work the bar and I find a corner a little less crowded than the others. I do like she said, stay quiet, have a drink and listen to the music. And maybe sneak a look at her from time to time. There's a jam session going. Bunch of bluegrass sidemen pick'n and grin'n and playing up a storm. Not my usual bag, but they know what they're doing.

An hour goes by like that before I catch her looking over at me and she waves me to the bar. I squeeze through the hicks and nod. She tilts her head to the opposite side of the bar where a thick crowd of people are stuffed together.

– Over there.

– Where?

– The little guy.

– What little guy?

That's when I realize that a dude I had taken to be over six feet is actually a pudgy midget standing on the bar telling jokes to a group of seven people. She looks at me and gives me a twisted little smile.

– So how you gonna handle this one, tough guy?

I look the midget over, taking note of the large bulge in the back of his pants. I smile at her.

– What's your name?

– Evie.

– Nice name.

– Thanks.

– You got a bouncer in here?

– No, just me.

– Got a policy on fights?

– Why do you ask?

– Well I think I'm gonna have to rough that midget up and I'm trying to figure if I should do it in here or outside.

– Well, you do it in here and you're gonna get eighty-sixed.

– Uh-huh. Well I guess I better take care of it outside.

– Why's that?

– I think I'd like to come back in here sometime so I can see you again. Here's for the beer and the help. My name's Joe by the way. See you around.

I left a fifty on the bar and went outside to wait for the dead-beat. He came out a bit later with some of his normal-sized pals and there was a ruckus. He pulled a gun. I took it away and thumped him a few times. The normal-sized people got outraged and I thumped them. In the end I got the money, threw the gun down a storm drain and went home. The next night I went back to the bar and sat there and listened to the music. Evie did her job and barely looked at me, but when her shift was over I walked her home.

We sat on her stoop for awhile and talked about a book she was reading and a movie I liked. Then she got up to go in and I stood and she moved to the step above mine so she could look at me without craning her neck. She told me she was going up. She told me she'd like to see me again. She told me she had HIV and doesn't have sex with anyone under any circumstances. Then she kissed me hard on the mouth and went in. I never even had a chance to explain to her that I don't have sex either.

It's hard to explain this kind of thing to a person. That this thing called the Vyrus has taken up residence in my body. That it feeds off my blood, scours it of all impurities and weaknesses. That it wants only to survive, and to do that it needs more blood, so it gives me the instincts, strengths and senses of a predator. That if I don't feed it more blood, human blood, it will burn my body and scorch my veins and leave me a dry husk. That exposed to the UV radiation of the sun, it will rack my immune system and tumors will riot through my body in minutes. That it pumps me full of adrenaline and endorphins. That it clots in seconds and knits my flesh and that if you want to kill me you will have to blow up my heart or head or cut me in half or otherwise annihilate my body in one blow before it can heal. That I am a secret in the world and that the greatest defense I have is to remain unknown. For we are few and we are rotted by the light of the sun. That my body is as close to dead as living can get, and is kept moving only by the will and appetite of another organism. That I could walk through a ward of AIDS patients and drink their blood and the Vyrus would eat the HIV and leave me with clean healthy blood. That I could walk through the same ward and infect the patients with my blood, and it would cleanse and heal them, but leave them with a hunger and thirst for more. That I could heal her.